An unofficial news blog for Neil Young fans from Thrasher's Wheat with concert and album updates, reviews, analysis, and other Rock & Roll ramblings. Separating the wheat from the chaff since 1996.

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What started as a live Crazy Horse song and was introduced to thousands of audience members wearing organic cotton EARTH shirts this fall in Europe has now been recorded live on the old MGM Sound Stage, (Now SONY), in Hollywood. With over sixty of the music industry's finest musicians and a thirty-voice choir, this epic version resonates with a sound that has never been heard on a protest song before.

Neil Young and all of these ninety musicians and singers recorded the song live together with no overdubs. Arrangement is by Christopher Walden. Mix is by Al Schmitt, who is one of the great "eminences grises" of the American music world, the most decorated engineer/mixer in Grammy history, and the recording is produced by "The Volume Dealers."

Neil Young shared the new song to coincide with yesterday's People's Climate Marches around the world.

24 Comments:

This is such an incredibly lame song. It is poorly crafted and poorly delivered. I expect so much more from a singer/songwriter as gifted as Neil Young.

No one can disagree with the overall sentiment but it is a string of naive slogans. The better question should be, "Are you going to take responsibility for your OWN carbon footprint, lifestyle, and your OWN environmental impacts, or are you going to want to have your cake and eat it too?"

Old Black - thanks for comment. Good to see you back. It's been awhile.

So. Did you really listen to the lyrics? Because we heard about responsibility ("You & me") for your OWN carbon footprint ("end fossil fuel"), lifestyle (starve the takers, feed the givers"), and your OWN environmental impacts (let's build the green").

Full disclosure - I make my living as an environmentalist - the kind that works every day to try to help society reduce its overall footprint (not just its carbon footprint). The kind that helps governments and corporations do things in a less-wasteful, less environmentally impactive way. The kind who converses with people from all walks of life who are really concerned about the direction of the environment and want to do something about it.

I get an inside view of what corporations do and think about things like pipelines, fracking, solar, wind, mining, ethanol, hydroelectric, coal, water supplies, agriculture. I see them sweat the details and go the extra mile to do things smarter and less impactfully - and often more expensively. I've seen amazing leaps in technology to help them do this.

I talk with people who drive a Prius fighting against copper-nickel mines. Not fighting for more environmentally friendly mining but against it. period. How much copper is in a Prius? I talk with people who are against pipelines because they are planned to go through their watershed but its alright if they are re-routed through someone else's. And if they're against all pipelines, they force volatile Bakken crude onto our rail systems, preventing farmers from getting their crops to market or propane for drying corn down.

And they're against fracking because it damages the environement and wastes water. They cite the same old limited (and antiquated) bad-actor examples when 99% of fracking operations release little or no methane to the atmospher or potable water supplies. And shouldn't we be using more natural gas - at least as a bridge to the next generation of energy?

Unless we are prepared to live primatively, we are consumers of mined resources, be they rock, mineral, or hydrocarbon. We are the market forces that drive fracking and mining and pipelines - either directly or indirectly. And maybe some of us are fortunate enought to be able to reduce consumption. But what about those of us who are not? Shall we give up our lifestyles and livilhoods for those who aready got theirs?

Who's gonna stand up for the earth? Frankly, its those who are making our footprints smaller and less deep through technology, market forces, and sensible regulation. Kinda hard to put those into a good set of lyrics, I guess.

My two cents. Neil is better than this. Neil and T Boone Pickens should join forces.

This song and the new lyrics added to Rockin' in the free are poor. Glad I'm not the only one who thinks that. And thank you for sharing your story with us.

We need to spend more money on research! People need something just as convenient as what we already have! Most people are not willing to live a simpler life. Neil just wants to put an end to all of it. I find that pretty naive. If we did he wouldn't be able to live the life he lives. In my opinion he's a hypocrite. Most of the celebrities calling them self environmentalists are.

Neil voices concern for the nameless/faceless, yet while this was being recorded, a whole other effort was staged and widely promoted to make sure everyone knew he was the new sugar daddy for a washed up actress, humiliating Pegi and embarassing his children. Makes you wonder if he now thinks any promotion is good promotion. These lypcis are superficial and inspire no one - time he started caring about the real people in his own life and win his fans back.

It doesn't have to get that far if we dismantle capitalism now. The fact that the majority can't see past the social construction of capitalism and see it as the 'natural' state of things indicates absolute delusion. Better consumption and environmentalism will not work in a system that values profit over ecosystem.

O well, let us assume mr. Young’s music is not about solutions (did he offer solutions to the Ohio tragedy? Did he sing a detailed scenario for saving the Amazon?). Even though he is a reasonably smart guy, his politics, also his environmental politics, are more about the emotion. They therefore have a certain naivety that I sometimes find slightly irritating. But let's judge the music on its intentions, not on the basis of our own professional egos. But @Old Black has a point, the lyrics ARE lame – from a musical, poetical point of view. It still is interesting that he put out three extremely different renderings of the song. Some quite entertaining. It would be informative to know which one is appreciated most by the community, and why.

@Vacant Horizon - dismantle capitalism? Really? That way everyone can be miserable, right? That way an authoritarian regime can spring forth & force people into your way of life, right? How about re-education camps for those of us who don't buy the hoax of "climate change"? stunning...stunning...

@Minke Toer - of course...pseudo-environmentalism is a gutless position to take at any time...it's always about the emotion & never the intellectual discourse...I know I must be in favor of dirty water & polluted air, right?

Where are the new songs about the recent personal changes in Neil's life?

Neil's faith seems to be placed in mankind's ability to actually "do good". Oh how I wish he saw the folly in that...

You don't understand socialism. Think for a minute. Would someone concerned about profit over people really want to replace it with another form of oppression? No. What is called communism today is really state run capitalism. Real socialism is allows all to be engaged in the world. The complete opposite of indoctrination. Which is precisely what we have now. Although you can't see that, given your reactionary comments. Things can change, but only if we change the economic, ideological system we currently have, which obviously is not working if one cares about life on earth.

I have a question that is probably going to show my ignorance at trying to download music for free....How do you actually download this song? I can play it, but there doesn't seem to be a way to save it to my computer. I'm sure this is just stupidity on my part, but I am not savvy in the digital music department.

@ nateholzman - As winderful as Interstellar might look, we kinda like Planet Earth. As Dorothy used to say, "There's no place like home."

@ Bjorn phd - Research is fine. But if we already know the answer, then we should just do it.

@Vacant Horizon - we think you're heading in the right direction. Although lots of folks tend to get caught up in the "-ism" game.

@SONY - good to hear. and thanks for stopping by, too!

@ Minke Toer - "But let's judge the music on its intentions, not on the basis of our own professional egos."

exactly

@Jonathan - We have to say for someone who has been commenting on TW for years, it doesn't seem that there has been a single inch of shift of your thinking.

"Neil's faith seems to be placed in mankind's ability to actually "do good"." And your faith in mankind's ability is what exactly?

@Bodhi - normally, you just right click and save file. This table format is a bit different. Try and click on file name on left. A player should appear in the right column. Then hover, right click and save file.

Why would my thinking shift? I have what is known as the courage of my convictions. I refuse to let the swaying winds of a secular culture affect what Francis Schaeffer once labeled "true truth". He wasn't stuttering; he was making a point.

All of the chattering about climate change & banning fossil fuels, etc. is simply another distraction from the reality of the human condition. We are fundamentally flawed as creatures created by one God who is not flawed; He is perfection in all of its fullness and transcendence.

These protests & others like them are anti-capitalism marches using environmental concerns as a guise for the real agenda. Vacant Horizon was at least honest in revealing the true intentions of these hoards of lost souls.

I love Neil's music & always will. I know he has the capacity to see the truth because he has so many times before. 'When God Made Me' from Prairie Wind was quite on point as was 'The Way' from CDII. Christians were once called 'the people of the Way'.

But alas he slips back into the platitudes of environmentalism so often that it's frustrating. By the way - ism's are important - words mean things & are used to convey ideas & concepts. Just because you may scoff at over-used terminology that defines ideologies doesn't negate the meanings of the ism's you detest.

This world is doomed and has been groaning for ages to be returned to the paradise it was originally. Human beings have no capacity to pull off that task - we are flawed so much to the core that nothing and no one will ever mend the flaw except...wait for it... the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Hmmm....sorry to be a bother...maybe it's because I am using a MAC, but right-clicking doesn't give me any option to save the file from the player. All I can do is play the song. Anyone else on a MAC? Help...I'm not used to downloading music....

True. Overwhelming evidence since the 70's greenhouse gas reports were emerging and a massive campaign to white wash the findings financed by petroleum oil tycoons setting us back 40 years in developing clean alternative energy sources.

In 1980, we were ready to go with extracting pollutants out of the air, soil, and water by offering clean alternative energy sources to fossil fuels and guess what happened?